Of course, this flies in the face of just how troubled the country is right now, sharply divided by race and ideology, mired in a political stalemate in Washington, deep in a number of wars that we have no idea of how to win and are probably unwinnable, and on several collision courses with another traditionally hostile nuclear power. But I suppose it is meant to. We don't like facing the ugly truths of what America has become just now.

And I hate to be the one to point us to the truths, lest someone accuse me of being a curmudgeon. But most of the presumed evidence for the greatness of the United States is simply wrong, based on long lifetimes of drilled-in patriotism and the wishful thinking of knee-jerk chauvinists and wartime jingoists.

We might as well start with "freedom." We are the freest nation on earth, the line goes, blessed with the greatest system for creating and maintaining liberty. (Even the fact that our Liberty Bell is cracked seems not to daunt us.)

Well, believe it or not, there are people who actually try to measure this, and by most of their reckonings, we are not.

The Wall Street Journal and a foundation in New York called Freedom House have been putting out an index for some years now, and their 2014 Index of Economic Freedom ranks the U.S. as 12th in the world (behind Estonia), actually slipping every year of the Obama administration.

Hong Kong and Singapore are listed Nos. 1 and 2.